High in the Alps an Austrian ski resort has found an unlikely source of early season snow: Israel.
The sun-baked Mediterranean country might not appear on many lists of top cold-weather destinations, but an Israeli engineering firm has come up with a machine capable of generating snow in all kinds of weather.
Six times as powerful as a traditional snow cannon, the All Weather Snowmaker, developed by IDE Technologies, produces flakes regardless of temperature, humidity and wind — conditions that affect cannons’ performance.
On Austria’s Pitztal glacier, 2,800m above sea level, an oversized gray hut houses a tangle of pipes and huge white vats that looks like a small refinery.
“But it’s a snow refinery,” chuckles Willi Krueger, marketing chief of the Pitztal ski area in Austra’s western Tyrol region. “We just want to guarantee snow at the end of summer. For several years now we haven’t had the right climate conditions. With this fake snow, natural snow has more grip.”
The technology behind the machine was originally developed to desalinate sea water, and it took 15 years for someone to think of using it to make snow.
A refined version was being used to cool mines in South Africa when a Russian IDE engineer came up with the idea.
“During a mission in South Africa in 2005, he suddenly exclaimed: ‘It’s snow, I can ski on it!’” IDE spokesman Moshe Tessel said. “We had been using this technology for about 15 years but since we’re not really familiar with skiing in Israel, it never occurred to us.”
The Pitztal Snowmaker started work in late August, and added a 40cm to 50cm layer of powder near the bottom of the glacier to prepare the slopes before they opened in mid-September.
The 2.5 million euro (US$3.7 million) investment allowed Pitztal to increase its ski area threefold in time for the start of the season, and several World Cup ski teams invited to test the snow were impressed.
But ski fans hoping to whiz down the slopes all year round are in for disappointment — Krueger said opening in the summer was “out of the question.”
And the Snowmaker will not replace ordinary snow cannons: Its job is to prepare slopes before the start of the season, while cannons will be responsible for their regular upkeep.
IDE has also installed a Snowmaker in the Swiss resort of Zermatt and the technology is attracting a lot of attention.
“Fifty resorts from around the world have come to see the cannon in Pitztal: from Norway, from the United States, representatives from the organizing committee of the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi and even from Morocco,” Felix Viehauser, IDE’s representative in Europe, said.
One country that will not be buying a Snowmaker soon is Israel, as its only ski resort, on Mount Hermon in the Golan Heights, lacks the necessary water supply, Tessel said.
In Pitztal, supply is guaranteed by two reservoirs holding 49,000m3 of water, mostly melted snow. The Snowmaker’s creators insist their snowflakes could even save glaciers, but glacier expert Heinz Slupetzky said their effect would be limited.
“We would have to use millions of cubic meters of artificial snow, just to stop the glaciers from retreating,” he said, and “that would entail enormous energy costs.”
Krueger said the Snowmaker pumps out snowflakes more efficiently than any other cannon and keeps working whatever the weather.
But there is a cost: The Snowmaker uses as much power in a single day as a whole family does in a year.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed